This is a long, introspective post on personal happiness…I think. If you find long, introspective posts to be boring, go have a cookie or something instead!

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I’ve been thinking about personal mottos for the past few days. Nothing! Zip! Bupkes! But today I took a trip to visit my sis in Providence. We also went out to eat at a 24-hour dim sum place and for bubble tea. Mmm! But the interesting event of the week occured when I got back in my car to head home. This is long, but I want to capture the memory while it’s fresh…

On the drive home, I reflected on the warm feeling I held toward my family, and how I was looking forward to the challenge of self-inflicted behavior modification for the better. And I found it curious that I was calm about this. I’ve done it before, I reminded myself. Why shouldn’t I be calm?

As I continued to drive, I kept awake by listening to popular music on the radio at high volume and high speed, singing (badly) along with the songs that I knew and paying attention to the lyrics. This was a new behavior, I noted to myself…; I usually don’t hear lyrics in music. It must be due to a recent encounter with a karaoke game in which I could see how badly I was singing due to the vocal-tracking capabilities of the software. A slightly embarassing, but compelling experience. An experience that had, I realized, attuned my senses to something I hadn’t been aware of before. With some lessons, perhaps actually getting off my butt and learning to play an instrument, it seemed possible that I could make some improvements in this area, and enjoy it. The initial embarassment of singing karaoke hadn’t killed me. And while I hadn’t found that I was the next American Idol, my outlook toward music had been changed, and possibilities that hadn’t occured to me were now open. This was a wonderful thing, and I noted to myself that continued momentum in my new activities would lead to further revelation. This I found a bit more exciting, but nevertheless I remained somewhat calm. After all, I reasoned, this is something that I’ve known before about myself, when I’ve remembered to remember it.

But my gut was telling me there was something different about this chain of events. I’ve remade myself before, it’s true, by jumping tracks to new careers with new directions. I’ve also benefited from experience before, thinking that everything somehow comes together and pays off in the end. However, I’ve been bothered by the sense that despite all this positiveness, my purpose was too random, without direction, and possibly self-defeating; an intricate form of fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

At that moment, the DJ on the radio was winding down the newly-annointed “Best New Act of 2005”, Maroon5. I had been enjoying their boppy Jamiroquai-like style, and was impressed by how tight the production was without being too mechanical. But of course, I thought, there are excellent musicians and sound techs who labor unknown, whose special job it was to create and execute at a high level. Not unlike graphic designers and illustrators who create compelling new visual forms under the direction of corporate marketing, or the hoards of nameless experts employed by top film and video game companies to put substance behind the fantasy of a director. I reflexively felt a twinge of regret, having left that world behind to pursue an independent career free of management. Floating.

The next song was “Let’s Go Crazy”, by Prince. To lead it in, the DJ directed our attention to how “Purple Rain” made Prince the top grossing musical act of 1984. And again with Prince’s 2004 tour, he was again as the top grossing musical act 20 years later. And then the song begins…you remember it, I hope:

Dearly beloved We are gathered here today 2 get through this thing called life

Electric word life It means forever and that’s a mighty long time But I’m here 2 tell u There’s something else The afterworld

A world of never ending happiness U can always see the sun, day or night

To be honest, I didn’t in actuality hear that much of the lyrics (thank you, Mr. Gore, for inventing the Internet so I could look up Prince lyrics). I just love the way the song opens. But I heard the word “happiness”, and I was feeling the music, and I was reminded that this is the way I want to feel. To create. To write. Now I was feeling inspired…but what was stopping me from following through?

Randomly, I thought of T.H. White’s “The Sword in the Stone”, which is the first volume of his Arthurian epic “The Once and Future King”. “The Sword in the Stone” was one of my favorite books when I was 12 or 13, because of the playfulness of the language, which I then hadn’t realized was allowed when writing grand legend. I was particularly delighted with the depiction of the future King Arthur, who as a young squire is called Wart by his betters. Wart is a pretty dull boy, but under Merlin’s tutelage he is transformed into various animals to experience their daily lives. He develops a broad perspective and understanding as a result of this. By the end of the book, all his experiences whisper to him as he performs the sword-pulling act. He is not transformed into the heroic figure at that moment, mind you. He’s still clumsy Wart, but it’s enough to get the job done.

It’s enough!

Through this, I realized that I know my default motto after all: “You can do anything you set your mind to.” My body of experience and flexibility in shifting my perspective make this possible. There are problems, though…I could concentrate and figure my way past obstacles, when I really wanted to do so. My approach may not have been the most efficient, easy, or accepted way, but it was my way. What I found depressing, ironically, was lack of efficiency, frustration of dealing with material and personal obstacles, and a lack of acceptance of my way by other people. Thus, it was not a formula for happiness…it was a reminder of endless struggle.

However, I have two things going for me: I can shift my approach and perspective at the drop of a hat, and I can see chains of patterns in just about every experience I have. These are bizarre skills that don’t categorize readily, but they are universal problem solvents that puts doing anything if I set my mind to it into the realm of possibility. This is, I believe, who I am.

And you know what? Knowing who I am makes me HAPPY. It took a drive late at night listening to the radio, plus a lot of random interaction with people over the past few weeks, to trigger this. Knowing who I am goes beyond mere labeling…knowing who I am gives me the strength to face challenges straight on. And in an odd way, it removes feelings of guilt from not being “efficient enough”, “competitive enough”, or “good enough”…there are ways around these shortcomings, and I know I can find either a workaround or a person to address them. Because after all, that’s “who I am, and what I do”.

It still doesn’t solve the “problem” of what I should be doing with my life, but knowing who I am gives me an incredible anchor to ground myself to, and I think that this is an important turning point. Who knows what I’ll think two weeks or two years from now, but right now…I feel pretty good. The moment must be marked.